Follow by Email

Thursday, July 9, 2015

Today I decided to go to Tel Aviv. This is the most modern town in Israel. Most countries consider this as the capital of Israel. Most countries have their embassies in Tel Aviv with their consulates in Jerusalem. But the Israelis say that Jerusalem is their Capitol.

The real reason I went to Tel Aviv was to go to Jaffa.

This is the port of departure of Jonah before he was swallowed by the "big fish". This is the town where Peter brought Tabitha back from the dead and declared that all food was clean because all was created by God. And departed Israel from here to proclaim Jesus' message to the world. The two cities lay side by side. Above and below is the church honoring St. Peter.

Picturesque Jaffa, on the Mediterranean Sea is just south of Tel Aviv, it is also where the apostle Peter received a crucial vision that changed his mind about accepting gentiles into the early Christian Church.Peter was staying in the seaside house of a tanner called Simon and went up on the roof to pray. He fell into a trance and saw heaven opened and a sheet lowered, filled with all sorts of animals, which he was told to eat. When he protested that some of the animals were unclean, a voice told him, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane”.Realising that “I should not call anyone profane or unclean”, then Peter accepted an invitation to visit a centurion called Cornelius at Caesarea, about 48 kilometres up the coast, and accepted Cornelius as the first gentile to convert to Christianity (Acts 10). Called Joppa in biblical times, Jaffa is one of the oldest port cities on earth.

This the closest that I will get to the Gaza Strip. It's south of here. Next week when I go north, I will get close to Syria and also Lebanon. This region needs another St. Peter to declare again that “I should not call anyone profane or unclean”. May peace truly return to this region.

But Tel Aviv is the much more modern city. It looks more like Miami Beach than a city from Israel. It has 8 miles of beach along the Mediterranean Sea. When you are on the beautiful Promenade, you could be in any modern USA city.